in the case of two candidates romney was running against, newt gingrich and rick santorum, certainly they wouldn't have been able to be in the race as long as they did after losing contests in each case without basically a millionaire or two afar or a billionaire backing them with checks as high as $5 million or $2 million. as a result, the republican primary was much more prolonged than it would have been. romney and the friends had to spend more money than they expected defending him in the early months, and really, the whole dynamic of what we are used to in early presidential politics with iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina, we have a nominee upended there. the super pack stepped in a huge way this summer. when romney wins the position, doesn't have the infrastructure, or have the money to compete with obama at that point. he relied heavily on super packs through the summer months to do his advertising. of course, this was not technically coordinated advertising, and trevor can get into the legal realities and fictions there. it had some clear, of course, positive effects in